


Returning Gifts

by Gwyn_Paige



Series: Paladin Martin/Angel Jon AU [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angels, Fluff, M/M, Martin Blackwood's Poetry, Moth Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Paladins, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26680990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwyn_Paige/pseuds/Gwyn_Paige
Summary: Martin isn't entirely surprised when his angel appears one night after he's made camp.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Paladin Martin/Angel Jon AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936486
Comments: 75
Kudos: 361





	Returning Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of my ongoing paladin Martin/angel Jon series. You don't necessarily need to have read the previous two fics in order to understand this one, but it would probably make more sense with context.
> 
> I am consistently blown away by the response on these fics, so have another one! This is a bit of an interlude before the next fic, which I am anticipating will be longer and take a lot longer for me to write.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Martin is out on another journey alone, which unfortunately is the case more often than not these days.

Usually, this is because one sellsword is cheaper than two, and when employers take one look at Martin’s size and his hefty greatsword, they figure they don’t need anyone else for a job. (Martin prides himself on almost always proving them right.)

This time, however, he’s traveling alone because he’s meant to meet up with another group of hired mercs, on the edge of the kingdom’s western forest. They’ve been hand-selected, so he’d been told, to finally put an end to the strange beasts that have been lurking on the edge of the forest, threatening to spill over into the nearby towns. So far, there haven’t been any attacks, only reports of sightings by frightened townspeople.

This is both a relief and a concern; of course Martin is glad no one’s been hurt, but beasts that don’t attack anyone given the chance are suspicious, to say the least. When he was hired for the job, Martin was equal parts wary and excited to investigate the beasts up close. The bottom line, though, was that the pay was far too good to pass up. He’s already looking forward to stocking up on tea leaves when he returns to the village.

It’s three days’ walk to the western edge of the kingdom, and Martin’s first day out had been uneventful. He’d had a close call with some wolves, but managed to scare them off with a few demonstrative swipes of his sword. He disliked having to kill wildlife, especially when he was the one encroaching on their territory.

As it begins to grow dark, he finds a nice, soft patch of earth in the shadow of a grassy outcropping. He can hear the sound of a river nearby, and decides it’s as good a place as any to make camp. With some relief after a day of travel, Martin sets down his greatsword and takes off some of his gear, and sets about starting a fire.

Before long, his little camp is bathed in flickering yellow light. He sits back against the wall of the outcropping with a satisfied sigh, and takes out some of the dried jerky he’d brought with him. He eats a handful of strips, and then throws the last one into the fire, saying a quick word of thanks to his angel. It isn’t the most glamorous of suppers, but it’s customary for paladins to sacrifice part of their meal to their angels, no matter how humble. And besides, Martin thinks, it’s almost like sharing a real meal together, which he wouldn’t mind doing with Jon.

It’s then, as the meat is consumed by the fire, that he feels it. It’s an increasingly familiar feeling now, as he’s already been visited by Jon a handful of times since their first meeting a fortnight ago. There’s a sort of odd tugging sensation in Martin’s chest, as though a string is attached to his lungs and someone is lightly pulling on the other end. It isn’t painful, by any means—just strange. It’s as though Jon (because by now he knows it’s Jon; who else could it be?) is trying to find him all the way from the ethereal plane.

So Martin isn’t completely surprised when, a moment later, Jon appears before him with a great cracking sound, though his arrival is quieter than it was on his first visit. He looks the same as ever: extraordinarily tall, a dark braid hanging over one shoulder, his long cloak nearly touching the ground where he stands on the other side of the fire. He also carries a small bound package in the crook of his arm, which is different; he’s never brought anything with him from the ethereal plane before. His eyes, piercing and otherworldly, light up when he sees Martin.

Martin smiles at him and sits up a bit, mostly out of politeness. This is only Jon’s fifth visit to the mortal plane, by Martin’s count, but he’s already learned that Jon is not nearly as intimidating as he appears. Indeed, Jon is already sitting down to join Martin by the fire, as though they were equals, adventuring together across the countryside.

“Hello, Martin,” Jon says, smiling back at him. Up close, by the light of the fire, he looks almost human. It’s only the uncanny height and the eyes that give his angelic nature away.

“Jon,” Martin says with a nod. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You, as well.” Jon knocks his knee against Martin’s, then glances around at their surroundings and sniffs. “Ah, the great outdoors,” he says, with a touch of sarcasm. “I have to be honest, I’m not terribly fond. I much prefer my library. Or your cottage.”

Martin laughs. “What about your poor moths? What would they think if they heard you say that?”

“My moths are indoor creatures, Martin. They’re quite nicely domesticated. You should know, they fly in through your windows often enough.”

“Fair point,” Martin says, still grinning at his strange, coquettish angel.

“What brings you out into the dirt and the insects anyway?”

“I’ve got a bit of a long job,” Martin says, and he tells Jon about his recent hire. “I’m looking forward to meeting the other sellswords, though. It’ll be nice to be fighting in a group again.”

Jon stares into the fire, looking pensive. “Those beasts you described . . . I’ve never heard of their like before.”

“Never?” Martin says, concerned. If Jon, with all his historical knowledge, hadn’t heard of them, that meant they were probably unique. Which meant fighting them would probably be more dangerous than he’d anticipated.

Jon seems to have come to this conclusion too. “Be careful when you get to the forest,” he says, wringing his hands in a fretting gesture Martin is familiar with by now. “I’ll be with you, as always, but . . .”

Martin nods. He understands that Jon’s power is still quite limited, and he can only provide so much protection during battle. “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry,” he says, putting a reassuring hand over Jon’s, who smiles gratefully in return.

It’s strange, just how easy it is to talk to Jon; during his first couple of visits, Martin kept trying to think of things to say and do that an angel might find interesting. Deep down, he supposes he must have been afraid that Jon would tire of him and decide he wasn’t worth an angel’s valuable time. But Jon kept coming back, always eager to see Martin, always disappointed when his power ran low after a time and he had to return to the ethereal plane. Apparently, Jon simply enjoyed Martin’s company.

Martin is fairly sure there’s another reason for this particular visit, however. As pleased as Jon seems to be chatting with Martin by a fire in the woods at night, he had brought that package with him. Martin gestures at it where it rests in the grass on Jon’s opposite side. “Have you come bearing gifts?” he asks, half-joking.

Jon starts, and there’s a rustling sound from under his cloak, a mystery that Martin is still curious about. “Ah! Yes, the—right.” Jon picks up the package and holds it to his chest, as though nervous to give it up. “I—ah, wanted to return these to you. I—I know you sacrificed them willingly, but it . . . it doesn’t seem fair that you should forget them forever, when I’ve already used their power. So I brought them here, from my library.”

Jon hands him the package, which is hefty and neatly-wrapped. Martin takes out his pocketknife and cuts away the string, then carefully folds back the earthy-brown wrapping paper.

Inside are his poems. They must be, because they all have his pen name at the top, but their titles and contents are unfamiliar, and they’re all carefully bound in parchment or leather, which Martin has never bothered with before. He thumbs through a few of them. They certainly sound like something he’d write, and he can tell precisely what some of the metaphors are alluding to.

“These are the ones I wrote for you, aren’t they,” he murmurs. He runs a finger down the lines of a poem called “Clear Skies,” which he can tell must be the one he’d written after he’d experienced a sudden strong connection with his angel, for reasons he didn’t yet understand.

Martin doesn’t remember the words he wrote, but he does remember what it felt like to sit down and write them. And now Jon has given those words back to him.

“They’re very good,” Jon is saying. “I don’t usually enjoy poetry, but I . . . I’ve read these several times over. I, um. I bound them, to make them easier to flip through. I hope you don’t mind.”

A lump has formed in Martin’s throat, and he wills himself not to tear up. “This is, um. This is lovely. I . . .” He clears his throat. “Thank you, Jon.” An angel. An angel of the written word had liked this poetry. He’d bound them into books with his own two hands. Not for the first time in the last two weeks, Martin wonders what in the world he did to end up here.

“You can keep them, of course,” Jon says, but his words are hesitant. “If you want.”

Martin stares down at the pages filled with words that are familiar and unfamiliar all at once. He knows this is an incredibly valuable gift Jon has given him. Sacrifices aren’t meant to be returned. But of course, he thinks with a smile, of course Jon, of all angels, would return the one thing Martin meant for him to keep.

“I can write more poems,” he says, as he closes the last of the bound volumes and holds the stack out to Jon. “These are yours. Like I said in my prayer, I wrote them for you.”

Haltingly, Jon takes them, and brings them close to his chest. “You’re sure?”

Martin just smiles at him.

“Right.” Jon fiddles with the corner of a page. “You’ll . . . write more?”

“I’ll write dozens,” Martin says. He’s got plenty of ideas for new material since meeting Jon, after all. “Hundreds more, if you like.”

At this, something moves beneath Jon’s cloak, something wide, broader than his shoulders, lifting it up and out, and Martin realizes it isn’t a cloak at all, but a pair of wings, which until now had been folded down against Jon’s back, almost perfectly disguised. But now they unfurl, stretching out at least two meters on either side, two huge, beautiful moth wings, covered in swirling patterns made of the same dark brown and green as Jon’s eyes.

Martin hears himself gasp, and Jon turns to look behind himself, apparently just as surprised to see his wings no longer folded away. “Oh no,” he says, “I didn’t mean to do that, sorry—I got, ah, a little carried away—”

“It’s . . . it’s alright,” Martin says, still transfixed by the colors, the way the fuzz on the edges of the wings glows in the firelight. “Don’t put them away. They’re lovely.”

It could be Martin’s imagination, or a trick of the light, but the wings seem to flutter a bit. “Do you think so?” Jon says.

Martin can only nod.

“Ah,” Jon says. He examines them himself, for a moment. “I had never really noticed them. Nobody’s ever complimented them before. And I thought humans tended to like butterfly wings more.”

“I don’t,” Martin says. “Butterfly wings are nice, I suppose, but when I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of looking at moth wings. I read every book about moths I could find with illustrations. I’ve always loved the colors. Dark, subtle.” Martin leans forward to examine Jon’s right wing more closely. The little bits of fuzz poke out, barely perceptible, each fiber dyed a slightly different hue than its neighbors. “Butterflies felt . . . show-offy. But moths were always sort of comforting.”

“W-Well,” Jon says, looking flustered and slightly perplexed, “that’s . . . I’m, ah, glad you like them.”

Martin knows it’s probably rude of him, but he can’t help staring. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that his angel has wings, but he hadn’t expected them to be so beautiful. “I’ll definitely have to write about these, at least,” he murmurs, half to himself.

Jon’s wings flutter again, and Martin is certain that it isn’t just a trick of the light. “I—ah, that’s very kind of you, Martin, really, I appreciate it, I—thank you.” Jon shifts his weight uncomfortably. “But—this is what I was trying to say before, I—I don’t want you to keep . . . giving up your poetry to me. Sacrificing it. If it means it’ll be forgotten. I know how important it is to you.”

Martin manages to tear his eyes away from Jon’s wings to look at his face instead. Jon’s expression is fraught, and all at once Martin realizes that this has been worrying Jon for a long time, now.

He wants to reassure, and so he does, reaching up to hold Jon’s face in his hands. Under his palms, he feels Jon’s whole body tense for a moment, before he relaxes, leaning slightly into Martin’s touch. Jon’s eyes are wide as they stare into his.

“The poetry won’t be forgotten,” Martin tells him, simply but honestly. “You’ll remember it.”

“I—” Jon says, as though to protest, then stops. “I . . . suppose I will.”

“I won’t lie; it is a bit weird, reading something I wrote but don’t remember writing. But the sacrifice doesn’t bother me. If I’m writing poems for you, well then. I’m just glad you like them.” Martin grins. “And when I said I’d write hundreds, I wasn’t exaggerating. When I’m not out chasing mysterious beasts through the woods, I have a lot of free time.”

Jon breathes a short laugh. “Y-Yes. Of course.” Then, softer: “Thank you, Martin.”

“Sure,” says Martin. Gently, he guides Jon’s head down towards his so their foreheads bump together.

As of late, it’s a gesture he’s grown particularly fond of.

They continue to talk quietly into the late hours of the night, as the fire grows dimmer and dimmer, and eventually Martin finds himself drifting off. The last thing he remembers before sleep takes him is the sight of an enormous outstretched moth wing, hovering over him protectively, like a great, beautiful shield.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again to everyone who's been reading and enjoying these, it really means a lot that there are people who wanna read this AU that I love writing about!
> 
> I can definitively say there will be more to come, the next fic may just take a bit longer to post than the last two.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading!


End file.
